Latest on French Online Licensing

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The French online gambling regulator ARJEL has come out with a strong statement to clear some of the uncertainty prevailing over the issuing of licenses in the online gambling market. It has categorically stated that it will "deliver first agreements to operators in the first two weeks of June." This would imply that French bettors will be legally able to place bets on the Football World Cup that starts in South Africa on June 11.

News reports on RapidTV have stated that ARJEL has scrutinized applications from 20 major online gambling operators for 30 licenses. This is because some gambling operators have applied for multiple licenses. The RapidTV report names some of the applicant operators. PMU has applied for a sports betting license; Bwin has applied for sports betting and poker licenses; BetClic has applied for sports betting, horse racing and poker licenses and Everest Poker has applied for a poker license.

However, two of the biggest gambling operators, Betfair and William Hill, have stated that they are as yet undecided whether to apply for a license from ARJEL. This would obviously mean that they have not yet applied for one. As a result they have indicated that they see no point in continuing to operate illegally in France and have stopped accepting bets from French customers.

Tim Phillips, director of European public affairs at Betfair, explained in detail the reason for their decision. He said, "Though it’s not impossible for a newcomer to create a commercially viable business, most projections show it will be very difficult to do so, given the proposed restrictions imposed on license holders." The proposed restrictions refer to offering average returns to players that are less than what is currently being offered in online gambling markets that are truly competitive. Phillips added that under these circumstances Betfair has to see how it can structure its operations within the new licensed regime.

The statement released by William Hill was much briefer it simply said, "In conjunction with the changes to the regulatory regime in France, William Hill Online is considering whether to apply for a license to offer permitted online gambling products to French residents."

On the other hand the leading online gambling software provider Microgaming has stated that it has submitted three operator applications to ARJEL, two of which are in collaboration with 888 Holdings plc. In fact the Microgaming and 888 joint venture was formed with the sole purpose of exploiting the French market. Roger Raatgever, CEO of Microgaming said, "This is a milestone for us and marks the beginning of our first wave of applications, which we believe will see us rapidly establishing ourselves as market leaders in France."

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